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A Limited Edition Field Guide

A collection of extinct birds from around the world. A consideration of the history of field guides. A celebration of bird books. A warning for the future. Letterpress printed and hand bound in an edition of 25.

The deluxe edition is now available. Included are four extra hand colored prints, along with the field guide, housed in a clamshell boxed covered in Japanese silk. A limited number of deluxe copies are available for $900. Contact me to order via email: sarah at sarahnicholls dot com.

The first copies of the standard edition are finished and are now available. Hand bound and letterpress printed from handset metal type and reduction woodblock prints. Drum-leaf binding in Japanese silk and paper. 88 pages. 2015. Copies of the standard edition are now available for $750. Contact me for inquiries.

I am proud to announce that after setting and setting and resetting and distributing and setting, the printing stage of this bookmaking process is finally completed! It has taken a long time and a lot of runs, and a lot of carving, and a lot of type. …

The Dodo is an extinction celebrity. Children recognize it as a character in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, one written as a stand-in for the author. Dodos have found their way into children’s stories and poems, into popular magazines and newspaper articles. Images of dodos serve as a logo for many businesses. Collectors assemble menageries of toys, ceramic ornaments, pictures, cartoons, books, memorabilia…

The Age of Enlightenment in Europe brought us, among other things, Isaac Newton and the scientific revolution, the Dutch Golden Age, Voltaire, both the American and the French revolutions, Diderot’s massive compilation of all things known and unknown: the Encyclopedia, and this guy, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, author of a 36-volume massive work of Natural History, called Histoire…

The Labrador Duck is the first North American bird that we are aware of to become extinct. It was rare by the time that Europeans arrived in North America, so information on the bird is a bit sketchy, but it seems to have wintered on the shores of New England, Long Island, and New Jersey, and probably nested and bred…

When you or I think of field guides, we most likely think of Peterson Field Guides. Roger Tory Peterson, the author of the series, became a birder as a child, and after years of watching and studying birds, he set out to create his own practical guide to bird identification that could be used in the field. His book Guide…

A veritable flock of birds have been printed already; I hope to begin printing the text for the book later this month; I may start in on setting this week. Here’s some recent studio shots to give an idea:

From the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean. The last known individuals were shot in 1893. The forests of the Seychelles were cleared in the 19th century for coconut plantations, and the birds were shot by the plantation owners to protect their crops. Common in 1811, rare by 1867, gone by 1906. The Seychelles Parakeet is at the top…